With a cry she staggered back and threw her hand instinctively up as if to ward a blow:
"Yes--yes, you would--wouldn"t you?"
He was staring at her now with blanched face and she was vainly trying to hide her bag and coat.
He seized her arms:
"Why are you so excited? Why do you tremble so?"--he drew the arm around that she was holding back--"What is it? What"s the matter?"
His eye rested on the bag, he turned deadly pale and she dropped it with a sigh.
"What--what--does this mean?" he gasped. "You are trying to leave me without a word?"
She staggered and fell limp into a seat:
"Oh, Tom, the end has come, and I must go!"
"Go!" he cried indignantly, "then I go, too!"
"But you can"t, dear!"
"And why not?"
"Your father has just told me the whole hideous secret of my birth--and it"s hopeless!"
"What sort of man do you think I am? What sort of love do you think I"ve given you? Separate us after the solemn vows we"ve given to each other!
Neither man nor the devil can come between us now!"
She looked at him wistfully:
"It"s sweet to hear such words--though I know you can"t make them good."
"I"ll make them good," he broke in, "with every drop of blood in my veins--and no coward has ever borne my father"s name--it"s good blood!"
"That"s just it--and blood will tell. It"s the law of life and I"ve given up."
"Well, I haven"t given up," he protested, "remember that! Try me with your secret--I laugh before I hear it!"
With a gleam of hope in her deep blue eyes she rose trembling:
"You really mean that? If I go an outcast you would go with me?"
"Yes--yes."
"And if a curse is branded on my forehead you"ll take its shame as yours?"
"Yes."
She laid her hand on his arm, looked long and yearningly into his eyes, and said:
"Your father has just told me that I am a negress--my mother is an octoroon!"
The boy flinched involuntarily, stared in silence an instant, and his form suddenly stiffened:
"I don"t believe a word of it! My father has been deceived. It"s preposterous!"
Helen drew closer as if for shelter and clung to his hand wistfully:
"It does seem a horrible joke, doesn"t it? I can"t realize it. But it"s true. The major gave me his solemn word in tears of sympathy. He knew both my father and mother. I am a negress!"
The boy"s arm unconsciously shrank the slightest bit from her touch while he stared at her with wildly dilated eyes and spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:
"It"s impossible! It"s impossible--I tell you!"
He attempted to lift his hand to place it on his throbbing forehead. Helen clung to him in frantic grief and terror:
"Please, please--don"t shrink from me! Have pity on me! If you feel that way, for G.o.d"s sake don"t let me see it--don"t let me know it--I--I--can"t endure it! I can"t----"
The tense figure collapsed in his arms and the brown head sank on his breast with a sob of despair. The boy pressed her to his heart and held her close. He felt her body shiver as he pushed the tangled ringlets back from her high, fair forehead and felt the cold beads of perspiration. The serenaders at the gate were singing again--a negro folk-song. The absurd childish words which he knew so well rang through the house, a chanting mockery.
"There, there," he whispered tenderly, "I didn"t shrink from you, dear. I couldn"t shrink from you--you only imagined it. I was just stunned for a moment. The blow blinded me. But it"s all right now, I see things clearly.
I love you--that"s all--and love is from G.o.d, or it"s not love, it"s a sham----"
A low sob and she clung to him with desperate tenderness.
He bent his head close until the blonde hair mingled with the rich brown:
"Hush, my own! If a single nerve of my body shrank from your little hand, find it and I"ll tear it out!"
She withdrew herself slowly from his embrace, and brushed the tears from her eyes with a little movement of quiet resignation:
"It"s all right. I"m calm again and it"s all over. I won"t mind now if you shrink a little. I"m really glad that you did. It needed just that to convince me that your father was right. Our love would end in the ruin of your life. I see it clearly now. It would become to you at last a conscious degradation. _That_ I couldn"t endure."
"I have your solemn vow," he interrupted impatiently, "you"re mine! I"ll not give you up!"
She looked at him sadly:
"But I"m going, dear, in a few minutes. You can"t hold me--now that I know it"s for the best."
"You can"t mean this?"
She clung to his hand and pressed it with cruel force:
"Don"t think it isn"t hard. All my life I"ve been a wistful beggar, eager and hungry for love. In your arms I had forgotten the long days of misery.
I"ve been happy--perfectly, divinely happy! It will be hard, the darkness and the loneliness again. But I can"t drag you down, my sweetheart, my hero! Your life must be big and brilliant. I"ve dreamed it thus. You shall be a man among men, the world"s great men--and so I am going out of your life!"
"You shall not!" the boy cried fiercely. "I tell you I don"t believe this hideous thing--it"s a lie, I tell you--it"s a lie, and I don"t care who says it! Nothing shall separate us now. I"ll go with you to the ends of the earth and if you sink into h.e.l.l, I"ll follow you there, lift you in my arms and fight my way back through its flames!"